The present disclosure relates to individual identification and the exchange of information, and more specifically to digital identifiers and information exchanged over networks.
The identity of the individual is one of the most valuable currencies in today's marketplace. Identity allows a business to develop rich intelligence on an individual in order to increase the likelihood that the individual will transact with the business. Success in today's marketplace is impacted by how well a business manages identity as a way to describe, understand, and transact with a consumer. In today's world the individual has little control over the identifiers used to describe him or herself. This lack of control is further magnified by a complex web of mechanisms that are independently managed by each organization with which an individual interacts. Furthermore, the consumer is solely reliant on these organizations to honor privacy requests. The consumer has few ways of actively ensuring that privacy requests are honored.
An individual's identity includes a multitude of different signals. For example, there are physical signals like an individual's first and last name, a street address, or a business' name. There are also device signals and digital signals, for instance browser cookies, phone numbers, physical device identifiers, email addresses, user names, and avatars.
These signals have varying degrees of accuracy, and the combination of signals provides varying levels of certainty relative to whom you are interacting. As examples, financial transactions may require more physical signals than device and digital signals, and website personalization may only require a device signal to personalize the content. The identity of an entity is a complex web of identity signals that lacks commonality across entities. This lack of commonality prevents the creation of processes that could create better control for all entities and efficiencies in the associated processes.
The current methods for identifying and trusting individuals and businesses benefits those entities that provide services rather than those consuming services. This method forces an individual or business to either participate in services and provide private identifiers—with the hope that the entity in control of those identifiers will not exploit the information and will keep it safe—or those individuals have to refuse to use such services. More recently, the choice to opt out of such services has diminished, as more and more online networks and services have become integral to society and the daily life of many. The current model of collecting identifiers to authenticate users and provide individualized services incorporates inherent problems and ethical dilemmas in what to collect, how to use it, and how to protect it. As network security becomes more of an issue, providing these identifiers to more and more entities threatens to diminish if not end privacy and identity threats.